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WHAT'S DOING IN; Salzburg

By PAUL HOFMANN;

Published: May 15, 1994

Correction Appended

With its Alpine scenery and Italianate Baroque architecture, Salzburg would be a delight even without its lovely sounds. But as Mozart's birthplace, it is also a shrine to which devotees flock all year, especially during its Summer Festival.

A square near the festival buildings is now Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz, and memories of the great conductor who died almost five years ago linger in Mozart's city, which he dominated. Yet the committee in charge of the Salzburg festival is striving to go beyond Karajan's conservatism, broadening the festival's cultural scope.

Thus, in addition to Mozart and the other classics, the festival this summer will offer a good deal of modern music, from Stravinsky to Ligeti.

But Salzburg -- traversed by the greenish Salzach River, the medieval Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooking noble architecture and patinated domes -- offers many delights to be savored before and after the festival. The Festival

In all, more than 160 opera performances, concerts, recitals and German-language plays are on the program of the 1994 Summer Festival, July 25 to Aug. 31.

The operatic highlights are a new production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," conducted by Daniel Barenboim, with its premiere on July 28 followed by seven reprises, and Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" conducted by Claudio Abbado on seven nights between Aug. 7 and 25.

Mr. Abbado will also conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in festival concerts; the Vienna Philharmonic will play under Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti and Sir Georg Solti (who will also conduct the London Symphony); the Cleveland Orchestra will perform under Christoph von Dohnanyi, the Pittsburgh Symphony under Lorin Maazel and the Saito Kinen Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa.

City officials insist it's a fable that tickets to festival events are available only from scalpers. If it may be hard to get into an opera gala on short notice, seats sometimes become available at the last minute because reservations are canceled. And there are always tickets for less fashionable performances.

Ask at the reservation office of the Salzburg Festival, telephone 80450, fax 846682 (the dialing code for Austria is 43; the code for Salzburg is 662); the box office, 1 Hofstallgasse, is open from 9:30 A.M. to 5 P.M. Monday to Saturday, and also on sundays from July 1 to Aug. 31.

Ticket prices range from $4.20 for chamber music at the Mozarteum Foundation to $325 for an orchestra seat in the Great Festival House, calculated at 12 shillings to the dollar.

There are daily concerts at the fortress, with "The Best of Mozart Concert" on June 17 at 7:30 P.M. especially noteworthy. The concert will also be held on June 18, 24, 25 and 30 as well as in July and August. Tickets, from $22.50 to $25, can be ordered from Konzertdirektion der Festungskonzerte, 22 Anton-Adel-Gasseweg, 5020 Salzburg; telephone 825858. (the dialing code for Austria is 43; the code for Salzburg is 662).

For something lighter, the Salzburg Operetta Concerts are held every Thursday at 8:30 P.M. at the Kapitelsaal, on Kapitelplatz, from June 2 to Sept. 22. Tickets, at $25, are available from Konzertdirektion Ars Media, 22/38 Bergstrasse, 5020 Salzburg; 873335.

Most children and adults will be delighted by the Salzburg Marionette Theater, 24 Schwarzstrasse (622) 8724060, daily except Sunday from May 12. During the two-hour performances the two-foot marionettes act convincingly, the voices and music lent by recordings of famous singers and great orchestras. "The Magic Flute" and other Mozart operas are on the program. Seats are $21 to $33. Sightseeing

The five-story building with a yolk-colored facade on 9 Getreidegasse, 844313, in which Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756, played his first music and lived until the age of 7 is a museum, the Mozart Geburtshaus. On display are instruments played by Mozart -- including a clavichord, a hammer-clavier and the astonishingnn child's first violin -- along with other Mozartiana. Open daily from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. (to 7 after June 25). Admission $5, children 6 to 14 $1.25.

St. Peter's Cemetery, on the right side of the Baroque Cathedral below a cliff and the fortress on its steep spur, contains the tombs of Mozart's gifted sister Nannerl, who died as Baroness von Sonnenburg, and of Franz Joseph Haydn's brother Michael, also a composer, who was Mozart's friend. Across the river is the Cemetery of St. Sebastian, with the graves of Mozart's father, Leopold, and wife, Constanze. Nearby is the tomb of Paracelsus (1493 to 1541), the alchemist, physician and champion of alternative medicine.

PAUL HOFMANN is the author of "The Spell of the Vienna Woods," just published by Holt & Company.

Correction: June 5, 1994, Sunday The "What Doing" column on May 15, about Salzburg, included an outdated reference to a performer for the Salzburg Festival from July 25 to Aug. 31. One of those scheduled to perform, Lucia Popp, a lyric soprano, died last November. The column also misidentified a hotel. It is the Osterreichischer Hof, not the Osterreich Hof.

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